


gemini

by hojichadust



Series: The Sensations Zodiac [3]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 09:06:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4013887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hojichadust/pseuds/hojichadust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>title:</b> gemini<br/><b>pairing:</b> sexing<br/><b>rating:</b> PG-13 for mature themes<br/><b>length:</b> 10k<br/><b>a/n:</b> this is a part of <a href="http://hojichadust.livejournal.com/2568.html">The Sensations Zodiac</a> collection. this one's for jenni, one of the kindest and most loving older sister figures i've ever had in my life. i am so, so lucky to have you as a friend and to be able to call you unnie. happy birthday my dearest wildflower</p>
            </blockquote>





	gemini

The service is small, and the weather is a mixture of windy and rainy, the kind that reaches up for you from the shelter of your umbrella and leaves you hair-whipped, bone-cold and miserable. When it ends, most of the funeral-goers don’t linger, eager to get out of the poor weather and into their cars to start their way for the reception. Only Yixing lingers, along with his little cousin, Zitao, a few feet behind him. 

Eventually Zitao puts a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, gege.” 

Yixing silently complies. 

 

He accompanies Zitao and the rest of his immediate family to their grandmother’s now-empty house, where Zitao’s mother retreats to the kitchen to make jai. Not a surprise, as the woman is a practiced Buddhist. Nobody speaks too loudly, as if doing so would disrespect the recently deceased. 

Yixing keeps to himself as much as possible, holding a wine glass that he doesn’t really sip and lingering near the bottom of the staircase to the second floor, the walls along the way packed with photographs—pictures of Yixing and his cousins at the beach together when he was seven, him and his grandmother at his high school commencement, and older photographs, ones that contain Yixing’s parents and aunts and uncles as children, his grandmother looking stronger and more youthful but otherwise the same grandmother he’d known all his life. He’s seen these pictures many times before, but he looks over them again now, regretful that that’s all that’s left. He does not cry.

“Yixing.”

Yixing looks over. It’s his uncle, Zitao’s father. He’s wearing a deep frown on his face, not unexpected, but the look in his eyes tells Yixing that there’s something else besides condolences on his mind.

“How are you doing, son?” 

When Yixing doesn’t answer, his uncle just continues without pressing him. The sort of thing you can get away with when you’re mourning someone.

“Listen. They’re going to announce this later at the reading of her will, but your grandmother already told me about this a few months before she...” Yixing’s uncle trails off. Yixing gets the picture. “She’s got property. In Japan, from when she stayed with your great-aunt as a little girl. It’s yours.”

Yixing’s mouth parts slightly, stunned clear of words. He can’t think of a single thing to say.

“The only problem is that she owes for that property. Nobody’s actually living in it, far as I know, so she was the only one still paying land taxes for it. Her retirement pension is provided by the state, so it didn’t amount to much. She couldn’t keep up. If the taxes aren’t paid in six months’ time the government will probably seize it and sell it to repay the debts she owes.”

Yixing doesn’t respond, still too overwhelmed to think clearly. His uncle rubs his thumb along his wine glass, looking at him sharply now. “If you want that house, I can repay the taxes. That’s not a problem for me. After that the house will be yours to do what you like.” Yixing’s gaze shoots up, eyes widening. “You don’t have to answer me today. If you want we can go over the details of the property. We’ve got pictures of it from when your dad and I were little. Give it some time to think it over.”

Yixing chews on his lip. The smell of vegetables and garlic frying in soy sauce was beginning to fill the air, along with the sound of his niece and nephew giggling in subdued voices in the living room. It was like everything was normal. If he didn’t know any better, his grandmother could have been in the living room with them, sitting in her favourite pine-green armchair, wrinkled eyes focused on the television with a smile. 

“Can I go see it for myself?” Yixing asks. 

If his uncle is surprised by his question, he doesn’t show it. He just ponders for a moment, staring at Yixing. “I’ll book you a flight after the seventh week of mourning. So you can pay your respects before you go.”

Yixing bows deeply, his mouth trembling. 

 

 

In the storybook lands of the Abuta District, Kyōgoku is a town that sits on the eastern foot of Mount Yotei, up north in the Hokkaido Prefecture. Its population as of seven years ago stood at 3,441, and it’s apparent that no one thought it vital to do a re-count since. There is no rail that connects Kyōgoku to the other areas of Hokkaido, and Yixing must taxi over an hour from the nearest city of Sapporo in order to reach it. 

It’s late October now, and the cold penetrates Yixing’s autumn coat as if it were tissue paper to freeze him down to the bones. The only thing he can do is stuff his fists into his pockets and stare up at his abandoned, potential home. 

It’s a private piece of land encased in stone walls, an hour’s walk from the hearth of the town, or a twenty-minute bike ride, depending. It’s not much different from the houses in the old, historical districts in Changsha; a wooden house, built on a foundation of packed earth, with a deeply-sloped tiled roof and delicate sliding doors of bamboo and gampi tree pulp paper. The stone garden is overrun with the weeds and shrubs of seeds blown in by previous autumn winds.

The taxi driver, having finished taking Yixing’s luggage out of the trunk, stands next to him and looks up at the house. He says something in Japanese, and Yixing isn’t familiar with the language, but he’s watched enough Japanese dramas to realize he’s asking if he’s going to be okay. Yixing nods, and hesitantly replies, “Yes, I will be okay.”

The driver gives him one last parting remark, one Yixing cannot decipher this time, and takes his leave. 

After that Yixing is alone in taking in the old property. He doesn’t stay out long—it’s much too cold for that—but when he tries to think back to any photographs of his grandmother at this place inside of her house, a child’s image grainy within a black-and-white frame, he can’t recall any. He had no idea of this house’s existence until it was suddenly his. 

He starts dragging his suitcase over, and the plastic wheels make a racket of crunching and stumbling over the gravel, struggling over the uneven terrain, which is of no help to Yixing, who is finding the stupid thing heavy enough as is. He had no idea how to pack for this trip so he played it safe and brought everything.

He’s gotten it halfway up the steps, up onto the wooden floor passage wrapping around the exterior of the house, when he hears one of the doors sliding open. 

Yixing looks up, and is just as taken aback at the stranger inside of his house as the stranger looks staring back at him. He’s young—a boy, certainly no older than him, wearing faded jeans that were worn near the cuffs, a red striped long-sleeve and a pair of beat-down slippers. His eyes are barely peeking out beneath his fawn-brown bangs, and Yixing thinks he has the most unique-looking face he’s ever seen, in the sense that he’s never quite met anybody whose face was so narrow and sharp and so alike to an inverted triangle. He thinks his chin would be ideal for harvesting sweet potatoes from the ground.

 _“Otetsudai shimashouka?”_ the boy says, and although his voice has a low pitch, his syllables are rounded on the edges, the remains of a childhood lisp. It’s an awkward, pubescent sound, like a teenager still struggling to take notes in his new, sloppy cursive. The Japanese, however, is what throws Yixing off, and he’s instantly stumped, struggling. 

_“Uh...I can’t speak...”_ Yixing says lamely, face scrunched as he tries to remember what little he could memorize from his phrasebook on the plane ride over.

The boy blinks, looking at him curiously. “You’re not Korean, are you?” he says, and he’s not speaking in Mandarin, but this time, Yixing understands him, because he minored in Korean as a language study in university.

“No,” he says, perking up a bit, “but I can speak a little.”

“Oh, I see. I can hear it in your accent. Can I help you?”

“This...is my grandma’s house.” Yixing pauses, carefully putting his sentences together. University had not prepared him for this. “My grandmother died. I came to see the house.”

At this, the boy’s face falls. “Your grandmother died?” he repeats. “You’re her grandson?”

“Yes.”

The boy’s lips pressed together. “Come inside.”

The entrance area, just before the raised floor of the house, holds the boy’s battered pair of Adidas running shoes, and two pairs of guest slippers for walking around in. Yixing toes off his own shoes and hesitantly slides his feet into the worn sheepskin before following the boy to the living room. There’s not much to it: tatami flooring, a kotatsu table, an old box television off to one corner, and an extra space heater pushed off to another. The boy motions for him to take a seat before disappearing into another room, and Yixing immediately gravitates towards the kotatsu. He’s only ever seen these heated tables in the dramas he’s watched, and he crosses his legs beneath the thick blue futon poking out of the sides of it, fascinated and grateful for the warmth radiating from the bottom. 

The boy returns two minutes later with a pot of tea and two cups, and sits down across from him.

“My name is Sehun,” the boy says, after Yixing picks up his tea.

Yixing nods slowly, opting to let him continue first. 

“I’m in charge of taking care of the house. My grandpa knew your grandma. He always said they were childhood friends. He said your grandma asked him to look after the house for her after she left. My grandpa’s dead now, so I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“Taking care of the house?”

“I come once a week and make sure nothing’s broken or stolen. When it gets dirty, I clean it.” 

Yixing looks around. The place did look kept after. He’s surprised a teenager like him actually held up the cleaning end of the deal. 

“You said this place is yours now?” Sehun asks.

Yixing nods. “Yes. I came to decide whether I want to keep it.”

Sehun seems satisfied with the answer. 

“You don’t look Japanese,” Yixing says carefully. The slimness of his face is a far stretch from the rounded cheeks that were so typical among the people here. 

“No. I’m Korean. But I’ve been here a long time.”

There’s something odd in the way he says this, almost as if “a long time” implied further than his eighteen or so years. Not the way someone might say “all my life” or “ever since I was little.” Yixing wonders if it’s just his mistranslation of the phrase. 

Suddenly, Sehun blushes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming, so I don’t have any food for dinner. Will you stay here while I go get groceries?”

“You don’t need to do that,” Yixing says, surprised. 

“It’s okay. I always look after the guests here,” Sehun says, standing up.

“Do you get lots of guests?”

“No. Sometimes your grandmother’s friends, but they’re all gone now, too.” Sehun bows shortly. “Make yourself comfortable. I won’t be long.”

Yixing stands up too, and trails after Sehun back to the entrance area, intending to see him out, since this was technically his place now, sort of. Sehun’s fringe falls into his eyes when he bends his head forward to push his feet into his sneakers, and Yixing thinks it softens his side profile, makes him look so much younger than when you first look at him. 

Sehun looks at him again. “I won’t be long,” he repeats, as if he suspects Yixing may not stay long enough for him to return. 

Yixing nods. “Okay. I’ll be here.”

The effect is immediate. Sehun looks less hesitant and much calmer, expression visibly relaxing. He then turns without further ado and lets himself out of the house. 

Yixing cocks his head a little. What an odd boy.

He gives himself a tour of the house after that. There’s a kitchen, which appears to have a working stove and fridge, so he’s certain now that this place has running electricity, at least. It’s clean and kept, the sink empty but the dish rack filled with drying bowls and plates, the counters thoughtfully wiped down, every pot and pan in its place. It almost seems as if this is the most lived-in room in the house.

Yixing wanders some more. There’s not much to follow—mostly empty rooms, some with a few old musty-smelling cardboard boxes sitting abandoned on the floors, but nothing of worth inside, materialistically or sentimentally speaking. He pokes through a few, hoping for an old photo album, but there’s none, of course. Nobody would think to leave something like that behind. The closet is stacked with futons and extra pillows and blankets, and that’s about it. 

Behind the house is more garden, although this one contains some plant life, bushes and small potted juniper trees, an untended path winding around a small fish pond that might’ve held koi, once. It might’ve been pretty, perhaps in better weather, if someone were to clean it up, but at the moment it’s unremarkable. Yixing doesn’t keep his head poked out for long.

Overall he’s stumped as to what exactly there was to steal here, perhaps save for the television, but that old thing couldn’t sell for much. The greater threat might’ve been a wild animal or a bum finding its way inside here, but it seems odd Sehun comes so frequently to check for signs of burglary. But, Sehun did say his grandfather was friends with Yixing’s grandmother. The place might have just as much sentimental value to the boy as it does to him.

After that Yixing doesn’t know what to do, so he goes back to the living room and sits at the kotatsu again, and turns on the TV. There aren’t many channels, and most of them are static. He settles for a baseball game, even though he doesn’t know which teams are playing.

It takes a couple hours before Sehun returns. Yixing hears the front door open, and stands up to welcome him back. Sehun almost looks surprised to see Yixing, like he really didn’t expect him to stay. He looks up at Yixing and blinks once, before his shoulders relax a little, reassured. 

“You’ve got a lot,” Yixing says, eyeing all of the plastic bags in Sehun’s arms. “You’re not making me a lot of food, are you?”

“It’s not all food.” Sehun put the bags down, and rummages through one before pulling out a small box and showing it to him. Yixing leans forward to inspect it. They’re candles, he realizes, long slim white ones. 

He looks up, puzzled.

“Come on,” Sehun says. “We should set up the altar.”

They carry a small table together into the empty room on the right, placing it against the furthest wall. Yixing watches, and tries to help, as Sehun lays a black tablecloth over the surface, and removes items one by one from the bags to arrange on the table: the candles, a small clay pot which Sehun fills with white sand, a little dish of incense sticks, pieces of paper with scriptures of kanji that Yixing mostly understands, written in neat calligraphy. It’s clear that there’s a very specific order and place for everything, and Yixing finds it interesting watching Sehun work, brows furrowed handsomely in concentration. 

Soon everything is set up. “Wait here,” Sehun says. He disappears into another room for a moment, and when he comes he has a framed photograph in his hands. The woman in the picture was no older than thirty.

“It’s the only photograph left here of your grandma,” Sehun says. He places it in the center of the altar.

Together, the two of them kneel before the altar and bow at the waist. Sehun is the one to light the candles, and then the incense, because Yixing is unfamiliar with the customs here. Then he rings the little bell shaped like a golden bowl, and together they clap their hands once and pray.

When Yixing is finished with his prayers and opens his eyes, he finds that Sehun is crying.

Yixing is shocked. “Don’t cry,” he says, placing an awkward, light hand on Sehun’s shoulder. He doesn’t know what else to do.

Sehun sniffs and tries to wipe his tears. “Sorry,” he says, in a thick voice. 

Yixing watches, saying nothing. He wants to ask why he was crying, why he’s so sad, but it doesn’t seem like the right moment. So he keeps patting Sehun’s shoulder, instead, silently sympathetic, until Sehun finishes crying and wipes his nose with his sleeve. He takes a deep shaky breath, resolutely.

“I’ll go make dinner now,” he says.

 

Sehun was still there when Yixing fell asleep last night, and when he wakes up in the morning he finds Sehun already in the kitchen, working on breakfast. He’d prepared a nice dinner yesterday, going through some lengths to create what he described as “an acceptable meal to serve a guest,” and then shooed Yixing to bed. “You must be tired,” Sehun said, and Yixing was, even though he wasn’t certain about going with someone else still in the house. So he retired to the futon laid out for him in the other room and promptly fell asleep.

Now Sehun’s here again, which surprises him. “Good morning,” Sehun says politely. 

Yixing lowers his hand from where he was rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“I always look after the guests,” Sehun says, exactly the same way he said it yesterday.

“But...my grandmother...”

Sehun shrugs. “Don’t see any reason for stopping.” Then he pauses, giving Yixing a slightly alarmed look. “Am I intruding?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Yixing can’t say he minded the company. To him this country, a small island, is a vast and complicated land, waiting just outside of Yixing’s door to swallow him whole. He probably wouldn’t have been able to feed himself yesterday if it weren’t for Sehun. 

“That’s good. I don’t mean to intrude. It’s just a habit.”

They go to the altar to burn more incense and pray again, and this time Sehun leaves a small offering of rice at the altar as well. Yixing keeps his prayers short, and quickly looks at Sehun, but Sehun doesn’t cry this time, just looks very heavy-hearted. 

Breakfast is simple: miso soup and rice with a small broiled mackerel. “Is there anywhere I can take a walk?” Yixing asks, over his food.

Sehun nods. “You can go into town, if you like. It’s forty minutes up the main path.”

“Anywhere else?”

Sehun sits silently, thinking. “If you go out back. Along the trail,” he says. “It’s not a very clean trail, but it’s a shortcut to Fukidashi Park. It’s a tourist spot, but it shouldn’t be very busy, in this season. You can try the spring water there. It’s safe to drink.”

Yixing nods. “Sounds good,” he says quietly. Then he pauses. “Will...will you come?”

“Ah...I can’t. I need to clean the house,” Sehun says, clearly taken aback.

“You don’t need to do that—”

“I do. Please, it’s okay,” Sehun says.

Yixing finds himself a little disappointed. He didn’t expect such resolution for cleaning the house, but, well, maybe he just really likes cleaning. “Okay.”

He cleans up the dishes for Sehun after breakfast, and layers himself with two sweaters underneath his windbreaker. He’s got gloves, but he hadn’t thought to take any hats with him, so he pulls the hood of his sweater free and brings it up over his head, so his ears don’t freeze over. Hopefully, it would suffice.

“You said the trail’s out back?” Yixing says, on his way out.

Sehun looks up from where he’s filling hot water in the skin and nods. “The path just behind the house. You’ll see it.”

“Thanks. I’m heading out.”

“Be careful,” Sehun says, turning back towards the sink, and for some reason these words stick with Yixing as he exits out the front door. 

He has to circle around the house to reach the back, because there’s no way off the property from the backyard. He finds something that vaguely resembles a trail, and presumes this to be what he’s looking for, so he starts following the path to the best of his ability. 

Beyond his grandmother’s house is a stretch of forest, the vicinity seemingly empty of any potential neighbours. The trees here are tall, undeniably beautiful with their red and orange foliage. Some of their leaves are already brittle and crunching beneath Yixing’s feet as he walks. The longer he keeps going, though, the more distracted he becomes by the realization that there doesn’t seem to be any wildlife around to speak of. No squirrels or chipmunks, or woodland creatures of any sort. Yixing slows in his step and cocks his ear, listening carefully. No birds singing to one another in the treetops, either, not a single chirp. Complete silence.

Odd. 

He’s so caught up by this discovery that it takes him several more moments before Yixing abruptly realizes that the trail’s completely gone beneath his feet. He turns around and scans the area behind him, but he can’t make out any sign of it there, either. Just quiet, untouched forest floors greeting him at every turn. 

Well. Now he’s certainly lost. Yixing sighs, then looks up, through the tree line. He can see a small mountain in the distance, to his left, one that he gauges shouldn’t take far to reach. Maybe he can make sense of his surroundings there. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and keeps walking.

Cutting a direct line through the forest from where he’d wandered off the trail proves to be difficult. There are more bushes to wade through, and uneven, hilly terrain to climb. Soon Yixing is breaking a sweat inside of his clothes, so he pushes his hood back from his head and unzips his windbreaker, pushing forward. 

It’s when he reaches the top of the next hill that he sees it. A little ways off. A very small building, too small to be a house, hexagonal in shape with a sloping roof of dark blue stucco. Yixing pauses, blinking at it.

Around him, the trees all begin to move in the breeze.

He’s curious, to say the least, and the longer he looks at it the more he gets an inkling of what the building is. Yixing climbs down the hill and approaches it, slowly, mountain and spring water park forgotten. The building is ever so slightly erected, with only five shallow stone steps on the front that access the wooden _rokā_ wrapped around the foundation. The windows are small, narrow and heavily boarded, but the lock on the gold-accented doors hangs broken. 

So...a temple. But that didn’t make any sense, here in this part of the forest, where it’s evident that not many people pass through. Yixing stops a few feet short of it and gazes up, drinking in its age and wear. The state of it is as good of an indication as any that whatever it is, it hasn’t served its purpose in a very long time. A strange uneasiness begins to churn in his belly, suddenly feeling as though the place is opposed to being stared at so long, and is staring back at Yixing. Like a living, conscious thing. 

He doesn’t know what possesses him to reach for the handle. No, that’s not true; he’s afraid of this place, he knows, and it only heightens his want to understand what invisible presence might be lurking inside. Around him the wind picks up speed and thrashes the branches of the trees overhead violently, louder and louder until the forest is suddenly a voiceless roar snatching its way through the strands of Yixing’s hair and into his ears.

His fingers are just inches from the door.

The hand grabs his wrist so suddenly that Yixing nearly screams. He can’t help the sharp gasp that leaves his lips as he flinches back, turning, and there, still holding his arm tightly, is Sehun. 

Yixing’s mouth falls open. “Sehun—”

“Don’t go in there,” Sehun says, serious, almost frantic.

He has no jacket on, just his dark long-sleeve top and his jeans and his beat-up running shoes. The wind is still strong around them, but he seems impervious to the sharp chill of it, his eyes and attention fixed solely on Yixing. He doesn’t look like he’d been running to catch up with him at all. He doesn’t even look out of breath.

“How did you—?”

“I saw you go the wrong way.” Sehun finally lets go of his arm, slowly, and for some reason Yixing feels an odd pang in his chest that reaches out with invisible fingers, willing Sehun’s hand to come back, to touch his arm again. Sehun stares at him, bangs falling and moving around his eyes in the breeze.

“You can’t go in there. It’s someone’s private property. We’d be trespassing,” he says.

Yixing blinks. “This belongs to someone?”

“Yeah. Used to be a stop-over for hikers.”

It’s an unconvincing lie, but it’s clear that Sehun thought they shouldn’t be anywhere near this place. Yixing decides to drop it, after a moment, only because he doesn’t want to upset his host. 

“Aren’t you cold?” Yixing asks, finally. 

Sehun shakes his head. “Takes a lot for me to get cold.”

Then, without warning, he takes Yixing by the shoulders and turns him towards the mountain. “There. Straight that way. You’ll get there in twenty minutes.”

Yixing’s heart thumps a little at the contact, at the feel of Sehun hovering so close to his back, but he stays level-headed. “What about you?”

“I’m going back home. Straight that way, okay? Don’t get lost.”

“I won’t,” Yixing says, and Sehun, somewhat satisfied, takes a step back and waits for Yixing to go on his way. 

Yixing obediently moves forward in the direction Sehun has faced him. He waits until he’s at the top of the next hill before he glances back, and Sehun is still there, hands in his pockets, watching him go.

It’s like he was guarding the place. 

 

_“That place meant a lot to your grandmother.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yeah. You were too small at the time, but back when she could still remember, her time there were her clearest memories. And she only spent a handful of summers there. Funny, really.”_

 

“How was the walk?”

Yixing shrugs off his coat, quiet for a moment. The walk had been preoccupied with thoughts of Sehun suddenly appearing to stop him at the shrine, the sleeves of his thin shirt flapping gently around his small wrists, his hands not even red with the cold. He can’t stop wondering how Sehun had crept up so fast.

“Do you want some tea?” Sehun stands up. “Lunch is almost done.”

It’s a soup with a clear broth, containing an entire small chicken in the black stone bowl it’s served in, about the size of a Cornish hen. Yixing digs into the chicken and finds it stuffed with sweet rice and dried red jujubes. Not overly complex in flavour, but it’s good.

Halfway through the meal Yixing starts stirring his food absent-mindedly. “Can I ask about that...building, we found?”

Sehun’s gaze flits up to him. “What about it?”

“It’s...not really a stopover for hikers, is it?”

There’s a pause, and then Sehun sets his spoon in his bowl. He has a weary, closed-off expression on his face. “No. It was a shrine.”

“Why didn’t you say so the first time?”

“Because I’m serious about it being private property. Nobody ever goes inside that. It’s trespassing, it’s not our place. The people it belongs to...most of them want us to forget it’s there.”

“Did something bad happen?”

“No, but it was never a very nice shrine. People found it unsettling, where it was, in the middle of the forest like that. So, they built a new one, and everyone agreed to leave it alone.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Just to try not to find it again. You’d be better off forgetting it was there too,” Sehun says, and the finality of his tone indicates that the topic is over. 

Yixing falls silent for a while after, picking at what’s left on the bones. Sehun doesn’t say anything either, and Yixing feels bad, like he’d put him in a bad mood with all of his questioning about the shrine, even if none of it still makes sense to him.

“Can I ask how your grandfather knew my grandmother?” he tries.

Sehun blinks at him, surprised by the question. “Sure.” He puts his chopsticks down. “My grandpa was born when South Korea was under Japanese rule. His family was ordered to move here to do farm work when he was little. So he was neighbours with your grandma. She came during the summers and they became friends.”

“Did he tell you any stories?”

Sehun’s face softens. “Yeah,” he says. “He...he told me they were sent out to harvest crops all the time. They’d run across town picking berries and summer vegetables from the local farms. Sometimes they’d play by the springs, and they’d wash the cucumbers and peppers they picked straight from the vine that day and just eat them, like that. They’d go to the beaches all the time and go clam digging, and they’d eat those fresh, too, for dinner that night, fried or in a seafood soup, and sometimes you’d still get some of the sand from the shells in a bite or two. They’d be brown as chestnuts from being outside all the time, and summers are humid, so they were always half-drenched with sweat too, and they’d have to bathe morning and night and their mothers gave them hell for needing their laundry done all the time. But they just laughed and never paid any mind.”

Yixing sits, memorized. The memories Sehun spun were incredibly present and life-like to him—he could almost feel his clothes sticking to him with sweat and feel the itch of purple berry stains on his fingers. “You have an amazing ear for stories,” Yixing says, awed. “How do you remember all of that?”

Sehun gapes a bit, flustered, and although Yixing doesn’t understand why he finds his reaction endearing. “My grandfather talked a lot,” Sehun says, clearing his throat. “Grandparents, you know. Like to repeat themselves.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed. They seem like very fond memories of your grandfather’s that you hold close,” Yixing says.

Sehun looks down, his neck flushing red—something that stirs a reaction in Yixing’s chest even though he tries not to stare—and an unknown glint of something settled deep in Sehun’s eyes.

“They are,” Sehun says quietly. 

 

Yixing calls his uncle a couple days later, even though his cellphone plan doesn’t cover long-distance calls and he’s probably going to have to pay a fortune for it later. His uncle picks up on the third ring. “Yixing,” he says, voice deep and calm. “Get there safe?”

“Yes.”

“Good. How is the place?”

“It’s nice, but old. You were right, no one’s lived here for a long time.”

“What do you think of it?”

Yixing pauses. “Hard to say,” he replies. “I haven’t been in town yet.”

“Well, that would be an important part of deciding whether you want it. Go check it out tomorrow.”

“I will.” Yixing looks up at the crescent moon hanging in the sky. “Uncle, there’s a boy who comes here and cleans this place for Grandmother. He says he takes care of the house and the guests. Did you know about this?”

There’s a brief silence on the other line. “No, I didn’t. You’re certain he is who he says?”

“I think so. His grandfather knew Grandmother, he says. He’s been cooking for me and stuff, like a host.”

“Odd. Well, I suppose it’s up to you what to do with him. If you keep the place I’m sure he won’t keep that up unless you ask him too. Just be careful with him. He’s still a stranger. What did you say his name was?”

“Oh Sehun.”

“Hmm. Name sounds familiar. Maybe his family did know your grandmother. Just keep an eye out anyway.”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Call me back whenever you have time, just to keep me updated.”

“I will.” Yixing hangs up, then stuffs his phone back in his pocket. As far as he knows, he doesn’t think Sehun is lying about their grandparents. The stories he tells remind him too much of his grandmother for that to be the case. 

 

He takes his uncle’s advice and goes into the town the next day, under the guise of grocery shopping, when Sehun asks. The younger was reluctant to let him go, seemingly determined to try and make sure Yixing did as little labour and errands as possible, but Yixing firmly insisted this time. Needed the fresh air, he explained. 

So Sehun lets him take his bike into town, cutting travel time down. Soon the dirt paths turn to cobblestone roads beneath the tires, and just like that Yixing is surrounded by more people than he’s been in the past week and a half. Most are heading to the market same as him, hoping to get freshest choice produce and fish before they were claimed by someone else. A lot of folk seem to be able to tell that Yixing is not Japanese, and some of them watch him as he cycles by, but if Yixing catches anyone’s eye they’ll give a friendly smile and nod at him. Yixing smiles back.

The market’s busy enough that Yixing has to hop off his bike and pull it alongside him before entering the throngs of people. Luckily the prices are very clearly labelled, and so Yixing is able to purchase mackerel, napa cabbage, tomatoes, tofu, and _mirin_ without too much of a hitch. He loads everything into the little basket attached to the bike’s handlebars and strolls along, taking in the bustle and ambiance of the place.

There’s one old lady at a particular stand that watches him with a little more interest than the others. Just when Yixing is about to pass her, she calls out and waves a hand, beckoning him to come over. Yixing does a double take, not expecting her to be addressing him, but he complies and goes over easily enough. 

Yixing opens his mouth to say hello in slow Japanese, when the woman says, in a very familiar tongue, “You’re Chinese, aren’t you?”

Yixing’s jaw drops. She’s speaking in Mandarin. “Yes,” he says, getting excited. 

“Ah, I thought so. We get a lot of tourists through here,” the old woman says kindly. “Here, do you want some red bean cakes?”

“No, that’s alright—”

“Here, it’s alright, take them anyway. So where are you from?”

“Changsha,” Yixing says, taking the saran-wrapped package gratefully. He already feels perfectly at ease with this stranger, a comfort that came with being able to use his native tongue again. “I’m not really a tourist. I’m just here to look over my grandmother’s old property.”

“Ah, she passed?” 

Yixing nods.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” The woman looks mildly intrigued, though. “Who was your grandmother? I don’t know many other Chinese residents besides myself.”

“It was her summer house. It’s north of here, sort of on its own. It’s close to a bean sprout farm.”

“That’s your property?” The woman looks suddenly shocked. “Goodness, it’s been years since anyone’s been in it. The place is practically taboo to come across now.”

Yixing blinks. “What do you mean?”

The woman leans in and drops her voice. “Everyone says the place is haunted, you know,” she says, nodding her head solemnly, as if there’s simply nothing to be done about it. “They say there’s old spirits still hanging about the place. It was a house that lived a very eventful life. It’s not uncommon for places to become filled with things that don’t know how to let go.”

Yixing’s completely lacking of a response to this, and it must show on his face because the woman leans away and laughs lightly. “Well, elders wouldn’t want to cross that property,” she says, in her normal voice. “But I know the kids like to run up there and dare each other to sneak inside. See who can survive a night with the spirits. They all come back out saying the house looks like it’s never seen a day without someone inside. All warm and lived-in. Funny, isn’t it?” She laughs again.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Yixing says, still trying to take everything in. “There’s a boy who looks after the place. He keeps the house clean, maybe they mistook him for a spirit.”

“Boy? A boy? What boy?”

“His name’s Oh Sehun.”

The woman’s expression falls a little. “Oh, no, child. There can’t be anyone by that name there. That family’s been gone for a long, long time.”

 

It’s funny, but when Yixing walks in he’s already expecting Sehun to be there. He doesn’t wonder if he has the house to himself anymore, assuming that Sehun is going to be around for as long as Yixing’s staying here. 

So he calls out, as he’s kicking his shoes off, “Sehun.”

There’s no response yet, and most of the lights are off, the house quiet without even the usual chatter of a baseball game in the background. If Yixing weren’t preoccupied with thought of the old lady’s words, he might’ve been unnerved at the silence. 

“Hey Sehun,” Yixing tries again, stepping into the foyer and removing his coat. He pauses. “Sehun?”

And then, there he is, appearing in the hallway from the kitchen. “You called?” Sehun asks.

Inside the living room, the TV turns on. 

“There you are,” Yixing says, looking up. “I wanted to tell you something. I met a Chinese elder in the market today. She told me strange things about the house.”

For a moment, Sehun says nothing, just stands in the doorway of the kitchen, but then he starts making his way down the hall.

“She says the house is haunted,” Yixing says, with an amused lilt of his lips, hanging his coat up. “Everyone in town thinks this. Kids dare each other to sleep in the house for one night to see if there are ghosts. I don’t think they know you come to clean during the we—whoa,” he says in surprise, when he turns and finds Sehun has already reached him. “You startled m—”

Sehun leans in and kisses him. 

Whatever was left of Yixing’s sentence snaps off and disappears into oblivion. Sehun’s mouth is dry and warm against his own, lips fully pressed to his own firmly. Yixing’s instinctive response to the sensation is to close his eyes, so he does, but his mind is racing, his heart doing acrobatics off the curves of his ribcage.

Sehun pulls away a moment later, and they stare at each other. Yixing’s cheeks feel impossibly hot. “What was that for?” he asks, barely able to hear himself over his pulse thrumming in his ears.

Sehun gives the tiniest of shrugs. “I wanted to,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted to for a while.”

Yixing can’t gather enough of his senses to respond to this, stupefied and overjoyed and hopeful all at once, and in his silence Sehun leans in again. It feels more like a first kiss, now, their lips moving slowly and tentatively on each other’s, the two of them nervous enough that they hold their breaths, heartbeats fluttering. It lasts longer, too, and this time, when they part and Yixing’s eyes blink open, Sehun looks at him and gives him this beautiful, soft smile.

Yixing can’t help the smile that stretches wide across his own face.

 

For the next three days, Yixing doesn’t leave the house. 

At the same time, it barely feels like he’s in it. The night Sehun kisses him is the same night the boy falls asleep in his arms, and it’s a miracle, somehow, that he’s still there in the morning, right in front of him, wide awake and smiling when Yixing opens his eyes. Yixing can barely comprehend anything beyond the way Sehun’s bangs look when they fall into his eyes and the soft, shy chuckle he lets out whenever Yixing catches him staring for too long and the feel of Sehun’s fingers intertwined with his own.

For the next three days, the longest they’re separated is when Yixing goes for bathroom breaks. They cook together, Yixing’s hand always on the small of his back or settled on the curve of his waist, nosing the faint blush that creeps into Sehun’s cheeks whenever he does. They watch TV together, or at least pretend to, tangled up halfway beneath the kotatsu and resting their head on each other’s arms, too content to move even when they get too warm and their hairlines become damp with sweat, ones that they trace with each other’s thumbs. They cuddle on the floor all day, and they kiss, softly, gently taking turns exploring each other’s mouths, teasing ever so slightly with tongues tracing over lips. They spend whole hours just staring at each other’s faces, happy beyond comprehension.

For the next three days, Yixing familiarizes himself with Sehun’s scent and the slope of his collarbones and the crinkles of his smile, and falls deeper than he’s ever been in his life. 

 

It starts when, for the first time, someone other than Yixing himself knocks on the front door. 

When Yixing opens it, he’s surprised to find the Chinese elder from the market on his doorstep, wringing her hands in front of her. “Sorry to bother you, child,” she says, looking worried. “Have you seen a small dog by itself around lately? A shiba inu?”

Yixing hasn’t even seen his own front lawn lately. “No, I’m afraid not,” he says, frowning slightly. “Is it your dog?”

“Yes, one of the new young ones from the spring’s litter. I’m afraid he chewed through the bug screen of my back door and escaped.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll help you look for it,” Yixing says reassuringly.

“Oh, thank you, young man. Please, if you see it in the woods don’t be afraid to pick it up. It may bite, but it should settle down once it gets used to you.”

“Of course. I’ll go out now,” Yixing says, and the woman bows and thanks him again before hurrying off.

Sehun sits up from where he’s lazing in front of the TV when Yixing returns. His hair is slightly mused and his shirt is slipping off of one shoulder. Yixing’s handiwork. It makes Yixing want to push him down and muse him up that much more.

“What’s wrong?” Sehun asks, sensing something’s up.

“The old lady who gave us the red bean cakes lost her dog. I’m going out to help look for it,” Yixing says, grabbing his discarded hoodie off the floor and shoving it over his head.

“Should I...?”

“No, no, it’s freezing outside. It’s okay, I’ll try not to be long. I’m just going to do a quick sweep of the woods before it gets dark out.”

“Okay.” Sehun stands up, and he dutifully hands Yixing his gloves and helps him bundle up, giving Yixing his old winter coat to use instead of his windbreaker. He zips the coat up all the way to the top before grabbing him by the hips and reels him in for a quick kiss, making Yixing’s heart swoop. 

“Don’t be long,” Sehun breathes against the corner of his mouth, and Yixing shivers.

“I won’t.” They peck each other a few more times before Sehun finally lets him go, albeit reluctantly, looking a little uncertain. Yixing squeezes his hand briefly as he opens the front door. 

“I’ll be back,” he promises, same as he always does, and then he’s off.

 

Sehun was right to give Yixing a winter jacket. Since he’s last been out the temperature’s dropped a good ten degrees, possibly more now that twilight’s upon the town. For the first five minutes Yixing shivers violently inside of his layers as he trudges deeper into the woods, shoulders hunched and half his face buried inside of his jacket until the hike gets his blood pumping enough to warm him up a little. 

He hadn’t even asked the old lady for the dog’s name. A stupid mistake on his part, because now he has nothing to use to call out to it now. He realizes, fisting his hands in his pockets, that he’s forgotten his cellphone, too, and suddenly throwing himself headfirst into a forest he’s not entirely familiar with doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. His getting back safely now solely relies on his ability to determine how long it will take before the sun sets, dropping the trees around him into freezing black darkness. If he doesn’t return before then...well, Yixing thinks it’s safe to say he’s probably done for.

There’s a strong breeze in the air, which only adds to the extreme chill; the part of Yixing’s face that’s still exposed numbs over until it feels like his cheeks are going to crack off in brittle pieces. His eyes water and his nose starts running, but Yixing just blink the tears away and pushes on, sniffling as he goes. He owes it to the elder to give this a shot. 

Yixing thinks of Sehun, back at the house, glad he had convinced him to stay indoors. He’d forgotten to call Sehun to the door, too, so that the elder could see him and reassure the other villagers that there really is a boy who takes care of the house for Yixing’s family. Yixing hasn’t given it much thought, not since Sehun kissed him, but now that it comes back to him he can’t help but find it strange. That everyone thinks no one had taken over caring for the house after Sehun’s grandfather died. Perhaps they thought there wasn’t any other family left. But it doesn’t make sense, for nobody to have noticed a boy for seventeen or so years. Surely someone knows about hi—

The ground slips out beneath Yixing’s feet.

He realizes too late that his sneakers slid on the wet leaves beneath his feet when he lands hard on his back and half-skids, half-tumbles down the small hill, covered in icy wet dirt within seconds. Yixing groans and clutches his tailbone, wincing, before noticing that he’s all dirty and tries to stand up. The dirt soaks through his jeans and freezes over almost instantly, making Yixing feel a hundred times worse than he did at the start of this hell search. He curses lowly in Mandarin under his breath, inspecting his muddy palms before wiping his hands on his soiled jeans. Not like those could be saved now.

When Yixing looks up, the shrine is right in front of him.

Yixing’s heart skids in his chest. The shrine. He’d forgotten about it entirely. Suddenly the mystery of it all comes flooding back to him—its eerie presence, the way Sehun was so secretive of it—and Yixing feels like there’s a hand on him now trying to pull him inside, cold forgotten, eyes fixed on the building. 

He throws a quick look over his shoulder. The sun is setting fast, the sky showing only the faintest hues of yellow in the east, the rest of it a shadowy blue. He should be heading back, now, but the greater thought in his mind in that moment is that Sehun is nowhere to be seen. This time, he’s alone. This time, he won’t be stopped.

Yixing faces forward, takes a single breath, and hurriedly pushes the doors open. 

The doors give way a lot more easily than Yixing was expecting, so they very nearly bang against the adjoining walls, stirring up the leaves crowded at the entryway. It’s dark and dusty inside, laden with cobwebs, but there’s something that’s got all of Yixing’s attention, something that tells him immediately that something is very, very wrong.

This place isn’t a shrine. 

There’s no pews. No wooden podium at the front, for any priest or bhikkhu to give a sermon. The place, in fact, is near empty, save for the one glaring fact that the walls are adorned with rows upon rows of little niches built in perfect symmetrical order, all of them holding vases and urns of different shapes and sizes, all with a name engraved on the dark marble slabs erected beneath each one.

It’s a columbarium. 

Yixing startles a step back, shaken. There has to be at least...a hundred, maybe even more, cremated deceased filling these walls. Any other shrine, Yixing would have felt nothing but respect to walk among the dead, but here, in this place that called to him like a living breathing entity, he feels pure, absolute cold fear. His first immediate thought was, this is it. These ashes are the thing that keeps these walls alive. 

He can’t help stepping further inside, spine rigid. The sun is all but gone behind him now, his figure casting no shadow on the murky stone floors as he ventures deeper within. All of the urns are dusty, faded, even looking weather-worn, the names of its owners equally so, making most of them illegible. The wood of the pillars are musty and rotten, filling the air with an off smell. Yixing realizes that this place probably has no longer than a year left before the structure will collapse in on itself completely. 

The further back he goes, the more recent the dates are on the engravings. He’s almost afraid to venture to the very end of it, as if it would give the building the opportune moment to swallow him whole and take him down with it. But he can see, now, that the deceased here are overwhelmingly male in number, almost all of them marked with a year of death between the dates of 1942 and 1945. _The war_. Yixing thinks he understands, right then, why everyone in town must’ve felt uneasy around this place. 

_It’s not uncommon for places to become filled with things that don’t know how to let go._

And then, he sees it. 

He thinks maybe he’s reading it wrong. He’s been picking up what little he can from his introductory Japanese pocketbook but a couple weeks aren’t a lot of time to make much progress. But he’d studied, studied so diligently, and this, this isn’t even written in kanji, the way all the other names here are. It’s written in the phonetic alphabet used to translate foreign, borrowed words, ones that don’t derive from their own language, their own country.

Yixing reads it again.

And again.

And again.

_Oh Sehun  
1926 – 1943_

He doesn’t know how long he was gone for.

He remembers walking. Walking, without being able to see his own feet. Bushes crowding his shins, branches brushing across his face, his forehead. His fingers and ears, numb, chilled to the bone, completely void of any feeling. Leaves soggy beneath his swollen feet. In the distance—or maybe in his own head—the sound of gongs that rang like church bells.

And then, suddenly, he’s on the doorstep of his house, caught and drenched head-to-toe in the freezing rain that shattered against the gravel of the garden.

Yixing knows there’s something wrong with not being able to remember how he was able to find his way back home, but there’s nothing left inside him that can bring himself to care. He reaches for the front door, woodenly, and slowly pushes it open.

The lights are all off. Every last one of them. The house is as cold inside as it is out. Yixing steps inside, shuts the door, and from the living room, Sehun runs out.

“Yixing,” Sehun chokes. He’s crying like he knows exactly what Yixing’s done. He runs to him and throws himself at Yixing, holding him tightly, tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry,” he sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“What have you done?” Yixing breathes, shaking, not with the cold. He thinks he’s going to be sick.

“I’m sorry, I—I thought I could—stay, without you finding out, I just—”

Yixing pushes him away, holding him at arm’s length, eyes wild. “Tell me you’re real,” he says. “Tell me your—that your grandfather really lived here—”

Sehun shakes his head, desperately trying to reel Yixing back in, burying his face into his neck. Yixing understands that Sehun is too distraught to speak, and this, this is how he knows. 

When Yixing falls to his knees, Sehun sinks with him. “I’m sorry,” Sehun cries, over and over again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”

In the room where Yixing’s grandmother’s altar stands, the lit candle goes out. 

 

They don’t say anything for a long time. They sit cross-legged on the floor, facing each other. Yixing has the towel Sehun brought him around his shoulders, now in dry clothes. He holds Sehun’s hands in his, and he strokes them over and over again, silent, unable to believe that these hands didn’t belong to something of living flesh and blood. 

“Your grandmother was my best friend,” Sehun murmurs. “My best friend. Every summer I was my happiest, to have her back. She was the best thing that ever happened to this town. To not fall in love with her...it’s the same as not falling in love with you, it’s not possible.”

“I don’t understand...how are you…?”

“I don’t know. I just woke up, in my own bed one day, when I knew I was supposed to be surrounded by every man’s nightmare. At first I didn’t know what I was doing. So nobody saw me even though I kept trying to call. I thought I’d lost my mind.” Sehun laughs dryly. “Then my mom got a telegram with my name on it. I went to my own funeral.”

“Why did you stay?” Yixing asks softly. 

“Because I promised her.” Sehun sniffs and wipes at his eyes with his sleeve. “I didn’t lie to you. It was her house, she said, and I swore I’d keep it safe while she was gone.” He bites his lip. “And...and it is, now.”

Yixing looks up at him. “What?” he says, too loudly. 

“You came to decide if you want the house, right?” Sehun gives him a weak smile, but it’s not a real one, Yixing knows that, because he can see in Sehun’s eyes that it hurts. “Even if you don’t take it...it means that someone else will. It’ll be for sale, right? And someone will buy it. Someone will finally make this place a home again.” 

“Sehun,” Yixing says, panic rising like bile, because he knows something’s not right.

“I understood that right after you told me. I thought this last job would be simple, taking care of you while you took care of the house. I just thought things would go a lot more smoothly than this. You’re a bigger complication than I was expecting. But, I can’t say I regret it. I can’t imagine anyone could regret meeting you.”

“Sehun, stop,” Yixing says, clenching Sehun’s hands in a death grip now, “listen, I know what you’re trying to do, okay, just--wait, just stay for a few more minutes--”

“I’ve waited a long time,” Sehun says. His eyes flutter shut. “I’m glad you came. This place can be good again.”

“Sehun, don’t—!”

And then, just like that, Yixing is grasping at empty air, the spot in front of him void of anything that could even resemble something once living. Yixing chokes on his next breath, hands balling up.

Inside the house, time starts moving again.

_three weeks later_

It’s snowing when Yixing locks up the place and drags his luggage down the worn steps. It started last night, maybe an hour or so after Yixing had put himself to bed, so now there’s a nice inch-thick blanket covering everything, the effects of which made the house look the brightest that Yixing has ever seen it. It’s coming down in thick, fat snowflakes, and it crunches a little under Yixing’s boots, not entirely dry. 

The For Sale sign posted outside of the gates is half-hidden in the stuff, parts of the words missing behind the clumps of white sticking stubbornly to the laminated cardboard. Yixing brushes it away gently with his wool mitten, and the sign swings a little with the momentum of it, the creaking sounded muffled by the dense fluffy white. Technically, the open house hasn’t started yet, but yesterday Yixing was visited by a young couple from Sapporo taking a tentative look, both of them doctors, aiming to buy a quiet place where they could take their infant son during the Christmas season. Yixing was happy to receive them.

With the snowfall everything is a peaceful quiet. It’s beautiful here. Yixing regrets not coming at a later time. The house looks kinder, not so worn-down. You can’t see that the gardens are unattended; it shows only the silhouettes of the little potted juniper trees, pillowed in an untouched blanket of snow. The lands surrounding the property are no longer beaten-down farmlands, but endless fields of winter wonderland, the kind of stuff you dreamed of frolicking in as a kid. 

Yixing looks up at the sky. It’s overcast, obviously, but still bright, the sun strong behind the clouds bringing the snowfall. It’s nice. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, the crisp winter air filling his lungs, refreshing the way a cold drink in the summer might be. 

“I’m glad you sold it.”

Yixing opens his eyes and turns around with a start. Sehun smiles sadly at him, an oversized sweater swallowing his lithe frame, a scarf wrapped loosely around his neck. He isn’t exactly dressed for the weather, but it’s his first real attempt to look like he’s bracing himself for the cold, like he’s doing it just for Yixing’s sake. 

Yixing faces him fully, swallowing hard. Three weeks without someone you thought you’d never have to separate yourself from is rough. For a little bit, Yixing thinks maybe he even hated Sehun, for probably seeing how Yixing suffered and still not coming to soothe him anyway. It wasn’t right, but he’d felt abandoned, and he needed someone to blame, for a bit.

“I know I was mad,” Yixing says. He breathes a shaky exhale. “I’m not anymore.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to do?” Yixing steps towards him, even though he feels like it’s better if he didn’t, just so he wouldn’t have to spend another three weeks convincing himself that Sehun is not and can never be something he could call his, after watching the rise and fall of Sehun’s delicate lashes. 

“Well...leave.” Sehun doesn’t stop Yixing from coming close, or from reaching out to take his hand shyly. Yixing doesn’t have to take his mitten off to know that even in this weather Sehun’s hand will remain soft and warm. “There’s nothing left for me here. There’s nothing to stay for anymore.”

“You didn’t have to stay,” Yixing says.

Sehun dips his head forward, until their foreheads are pressed together, and they both close their eyes instinctively. Sehun reaches with his other hand to cup Yixing’s cheek. “It’s okay,” Sehun says. “I never felt alone, all those years. It was like things had never changed. And I’m happy you came. I’m so, so glad.”

Yixing fought not to reach out any further and crush him close, or else he’d never be able to say goodbye. “Do I remind you of my grandmother?” he asks.

Sehun shakes his head a little. “No. No, you never did. But I knew.”

They separate, opening their eyes again. Sehun’s are shining when he brings Yixing’s hand up to his face and presses the tip of his mitten to his mouth, not kissing it, just holding it there for a few moments. “Be safe,” he says.

“I will,” Yixing says, and Sehun gives him one last smile. 

The taxi pulls up to Yixing standing alone in the courtyard, luggage abandoned a few feet behind him, serene face turned upwards towards the sky.


End file.
